Since so many of you wanted to weigh in on The Boys
I don't know if I should actually link cybersmith
Transcription:
culture crave posts:
'The Boys' S5 finale is at 6.7 on IMDb
The final two episodes are the lowest-rated in the show's history
Cybersmith responds:
The writers really destroyed their own art out of a pig-headed refusal to look beyond their own political biases.
Homelander should have killed the nonbelievers and ushered in Heaven on Earth.
THAT would have made the show an all-time great.
Now? It'll just be remembered as a disappointment.
My favorite part of the finale is that Vought is unharmed and still operates on the same level as before. This is just peak Liberal shit.
Vought will be unharmed/didnt even disband their supes program so they can make endless spinoffs. Total MCU victory
And since superhumans seem to get powers randomly, there's a good chance they end up with another Homelander/Soldier Boy/Queen Maeve/Bombsight/Ryan/whatever who is super strong and close to indestructible that will be impossible to kill or control. That doesn't even get into the other dangerous types like Victoria Newman or Cipher who, though mortal, can do shit like take over other people's bodies or make their heads explode.
Butcher is correct at the end of the series: superhumans will continue to be a problem. But of course, this is libshit storytelling so they have to swerve and he takes the most extreme solution possible to act as a strawman for why the neoliberal status quo must continue. Any systemic or radical change must be avoided because it implies liberal institutions have no legitimacy otherwise, as they are unable to deal with existential problems.
Really felt like they wrote themselves into a corner. Butcher is obviously right in that they're just rolling the dice on getting another homelander situation. And the writes knows that he's right, I think, because everything just went back to the status quo from pre-season 1, but the only thing the other characters can do is awkwardly look away and morally condemn him. Only the most unhinged violent character is allowed to acknowledge the problem at all.
It didn't even do that. It's worse than it was prior to season 1, because the supes are still in the military. That's not over, that's not done with. Everything Stan Edgar wanted he got, he got supes in the military, he has V and Temp V as products he can sell to the government, and he's rid of Homelander (And Stormfront, the seven as an institution, and any opposition to his unquestioned rule over Vought). In effect all The Boys did was clean up Stan Edgar's mess.
We even have a touching moment where Hughie rejects even the token opposition to Vought's total victory in the form of government oversight of supes.
Edit: Man, the show even cleaned up his ancient messes. Soldier boy is now in Vought custody rather than floating around some Russian lab, all the Red River people are dead, all the messed up experiments can be blamed on people who are coincidentally also dead now, there's no V1 people running around any more (And there won't be any more), the anti vought contingent of Godolkin U went to Canada.
And the Esposito character basically said as much earlier in the season "you aren't taking down capital so I'll be back, or someone like me, and the fight will continue, and you'll always lose". The fact that MM didn't dome him right there was insane to me, but I guess they had to have him get tortured by homelander or soldier boy a bit for plot reasons or something.
is it? they fought against supes not capitalism, i feel like you could easily take it as a 'the rich continue to be shitty because that wasnt addressed by the boys' way. also yk, butcher was in with the CIA, of course theyre not getting rid of capitalism
MM spends the early parts of the series dressed in black panther/Malcolm x/black power fist labelled clothing and making both allusions to systemic oppression in conversation (Including outright calling Mallory out on the crack epidemic), and having his backstory be one rooted in capitalist exploitation and systemic discrimination is the thing. They just don't do anything with it beyond have him not like Stan Edgar.
But also I don't think we need to get too much into media analysis to have a little laugh about a guy thinking the show should have ended with a victorious Homelander and the only reason they didn't do that was because of woke.
Also in the literal last episode they call billionaires the "ruling class" explicitly, but uh I guess they can just keep being the ruling class as long as Homelander is dead.
https://www.okayplayer.com/laz-alonso-explains-why-mothers-milk-wears-hip-hop-tees-in-the-boys/526833
I wouldn't put too much into the shirts. Apparently, it was very much a mix of aesthetics, actor preference, easter egg vibes. The shirts will often reference something happening in the ep.
spoiler
For example the ep when the president was being hunted, MM wore a Dead Prez shirt.The had him wearing black panther breakfast shirts and pictures of Obama in his apartment, it was all lib caricature of what they think a black revolutionary is. They drained that well pretty quick and didn't know what to do after. Heaven forbid they read a book.
I'll have to go back and check but I could've sworn he took down the Obama picture at the end of season 3 to symbolize his abandoning working within the system
Not that it matters, season 4 went turbo lib after that
Oh, I don't remember that. You sure he wasn't packing it to take with him? Lol.
They fought against one supe specifically. All other shitty supes including the psychopath psychics are still around and under the command of Vought.